


The Plant Witch and the Detective

by Regarklipop



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Child Death, Gen, Ghosts, M/M, Magic, Murder, Noire AU, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10043285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regarklipop/pseuds/Regarklipop
Summary: Nursey is a plant witch that can communicate with the ghosts of the dead. He hates doing it, so why does Detective Poindexter always consult him?x-posted from Tumblr





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a post by @shitty-check-please-aus where Nursey can speak to cats that spiraled out from there.

Derek nearly falls out of bed when the heavy banging on his front door wakes him up. He’s got a face mask on that he barely manages to wipe off with the bottom of his t-shirt while carefully batting the glass bottles and jars filled with plants and herbs that hang from his ceiling out of his way as he stumbles to the door of his apartment.

“I’m comin’… fffffuck off” he pulls the door open, then immediately closes it when he sees who’s out there. The banging starts again.

“Forget it Poindexter! Whatever you want I’m not doing it!” Derek hooks up the chain lock on his door, installed after Poindexter had tried to get into his apartment with a set of lock-picks.

“C’mon Nurse! I’ve got two dead and a frantic family up my ass to find out who did it,” Derek can hear him shuffling around, the quiet sound of glass breaking. 

“Hate to break it to you Detective but that is genuinely not my problem,” Derek is not getting involved in whatever fuckery Poindexter has managed to get himself into. Not this time.

Derek jumps as he feels a brush against his bare legs, looking down to see two kittens, barely corporeal, gently pawing at Derek’s legs, desperate to be picked up and cuddled.

“You’ve got to be joking… I’m not,” Derek turns around and nearly rips the chain off as he fumbles it, trying to get the door open. 

“You know I hate anything to do with kids, William. I don’t need to know how fucked up the world is. The fact that I’m dealing with not one, but two kittens? Also? I’m not your fucking Cole Sear,” Derek knows his bottom lip is shaking. He’s trying not to cry and he’s not doing this. He’s not doing this.

“Nurse, Nurse! Jeeze, you know I wouldn’t… shit. I’m not asking you to come with. I just need you to convince them that they need to sniff out the guy who killed them. You don’t have to do anything else. Although it would obviously be helpful if you did get anything else from them,” Will reaches out a hand, tentative, but Derek lets it settle on his arm. 

He feels himself sag against the door but Will is already supporting him back into his apartment.

“You’d’ve never been able to do that when you started at the academy,” Derek mumbles, sitting down hard on his couch before leaning against the back, feeling too raw.

“Yeah well, having to jump fences and fight off bad guys kind of requires muscles that, say, a hipster plant witch might not have,” Derek snorts. 

“Please, it’s not the job, it’s the chronic depression,” Derek lays a hand over his eyes. “The nightmares don’t help either,” He drops his hand when he feels two weights land on his lap. The kittens look like they’re settling in, and Derek would be jealous of them if even seeing them didn’t put a lead weight in his throat.

“I’ll have to come by more often,” Will’s lips are pinched together, unhappy. Nursey just wants to go the fuck back to sleep and pretend like he isn’t about to help find the killer of a pair of children. “Do you need anything Nurse?”

He wants liquor, but he asks for tea.

“Still in the drawer under the kettle, yeah?” Derek nods, watching as Will heads into the kitchen. He’ll be in there until the water boils because Derek’s kettle hasn’t been replaced in thirty years and it gives Will the heebies.

Derek looks down at the kittens, barely older than having just opened their eyes. When he goes to rest his hand on their backs, it goes through. This kind of power only reacts to pure intent - an intent Derek is not feeling right now. 

He picks his hand up again, so tired, but when he sets it down again, he can feel the soft nothingness of a soul. His mind focusing as his spirit sheds the discomfort of the physical realm. This is why he hates doing this: he already feels disconnected from his body enough on a day-to-day basis, and this kind of nothingness is inviting.

Whether a death is violent or not doesn’t seem to make a difference.

The problem with souls is that like the cats they become, they are completely contrarian once they’re released from their mortal coil. It’s a feeling amplified a thousand percent in children and is usually mixed with the confusion kids feel at their death.

These two souls were twins in life, and as Derek tries to navigate through the non-linear way souls have of dealing with things, he’s mobbed by both of them, frantic to get comfort but not wanting Derek to get near them. 

It takes hours in this place that he goes - somewhere between here and there - before he finally manages to get snippets out of them beyond fear and confusion.

They didn’t know who did this, but they did. They wore a face that was not their own. The strange smell of hands against mouth and nose as first one soul, then the second sprang out of bodies like jack-in-the-boxes. 

Derek can smell what they smell, and the far distant desperate thirst for air–

He jerks up, trying to gather the two tiny souls to him, face streaked with tears as he realises they’ve already passed on, his lap empty where the kittens used to be.

Hands are on him already, brushing tears away, as Will makes nonsense sounds and apologises, thanks Derek a thousand times.

It’s a long time before he feels in control again, but he’s got a blanket around him and a cup of tea in his hands and Will is pressed next to him with an arm around him. He doesn’t press for anything, just waits for Derek to come back.

For a few seconds, Derek hates him. Hates the way Will knows how to play Derek, hates how he knows every soft spot and weakness. Hates how he could have kept those two souls relatively corralled wherever Will found them but instead got Derek to agree just by showing them to him.

It lasts a bit, will come back much stronger later and Derek won’t speak to Will for a few more months until Detective Poindexter needs him again.  
It’s their waltz, and they’ll dance it again. 

“It was a shapeshifter… Came into the house as someone the girls trusted, but they knew something was off. Something about the smell wasn’t right. Probably a difference in perfume or something. The twins were sleeping when it came. No idea what the motive was, just that the souls were surprised. Then they were-” Derek’s lips seal together, but Will just nods, his grip tightening on Derek’s shoulder. 

“Okay. Okay Derek. I need- I have to go make a call. I’ll be right back okay? Right back. Do you need me to stay?” And Derek does. He’s so lonely and he’s felt off-balance and upset since Wiliam J. Poindexter banged on his door, but he nods and doesn’t react when Will leaves to makes his phone call in the kitchen.

He’s so cold, always is after something like this. Not like he ever tells Will. He’s already a mess where Will is concerned, no matter how hard he tries, and this would just be another thing on the list Will keeps in his brain filed under: Nurse, Derek M.

When Will comes back, Derek looks at him. 

“I’m not doing this again Will,” Will looks like he’s about to object but Derek forges on. “I’m not. I can’t and I won’t. I’m a fucking mess, and I always hate myself after visits like these because they suck so much but I always give in when you ask me to do something. I hate it because I always feel manipulated by you. You never visit and then the only time you do it’s to convince me to do something that hurts me,” he feels like he’s babbling, but from the look on Will’s face he must be making some kind of sense. Derek puts his head in his hands.

“Derek, jesus, I’m sorry. Fuck, I didn’t think,” 

“Of course you didn’t,” It’s a cheap shot, but Derek feels raw right now, scraped out like a fucking empty yogurt cup.

“I deserved that. Do you want me to go?” He sounds unsure… Unhappy. He’s shifting back and forth on nervous legs.

“No. I don’t want to be alone right now, but I need to sleep. Get me to bed, stay until I fall asleep and then you can go do whatever the hell it is you need to do.”

They get Nursey stood up and the full teacup set on the side table. By the time Nursey gets the ten feet down the hall in his bedroom he wants to fall apart all over again, shivering uncontrollably as Will tries to rub warmth into his arms, only to be shrugged off. 

Dex gets his t-shirt off, still messy from the face mask. It feels like eons ago. Another soft t-shirt is pressed into his hands, and Derek manages to pull it over his head before he flops down on his bed. When his head hits cool silk pillowcase, he’s out. He doesn’t feel the kiss Will presses to his cheek.

The next morning, Poindexter is gone, but there’s a hot chocolate sitting on the bedside table that Derek takes one sip of before throwing against the wall.

Fuck.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Please find me @ch-ch-chyeanurse on tumblr.


End file.
